Edward Snowden is winning the internet today

KingBrian2

Part of what the NSA was doing was industrial espionage. So gaining commercial advantage over rivals in a particular field. Definitely unethical behaviour. Companies should think twice before getting involved with intelligence agencies supposedly helping their Nation out or more likely profiting for themselves.

Manic Moran

Zebra3 wrote: »

If you actually bothered to follow public statements made by Snowden you'd know that what he said was that he wanted the information in the public domain, and then let the public decide if they wanted to act on the information, but that they had a right to know about the criminality that was going.

For some bizarre reason you think he should have trusted murdering scumbags to investigate it all and that they'd start prosecuting people. :rolleyes:

Not that they'd necessarily prosecute anyone, but to at least stop the NSA from its activities. And if the Intel Committee members responded back with PFOs, Snowden would still have the further option of doing what he did.

Here's the deal. If Snowden was of the opinion that these were illegal activities, it's his moral responsibility to not only get them to stop, but also to do so in the least-damaging manner possible. And, because of his choice of employer, he also had a -legal- responsibility to do so. There's no need to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Is the goal to get the NSA to stop collecting information on Americans? Or is it to cause the most damage possible to the government's reputation? The one is far more laudable than the other. And much less likely to result in a prison sentence.

If self serving local politicians believe they can score political points with voters by bringing concerns over surveillance programs to the courts and congress then then they will.

I agree. But, seeing as I have a very cynical view of national-level politicians, I suspect that what would happen is that they would do the trumpeting themselves and seize the opportunity for self-promotion once the information crossed their desk. Especially if they had reason to suspect that the information could go public soon anyway.

hatrickpatrick

Manic Moran wrote: »

Here's the deal. If Snowden was of the opinion that these were illegal activities, it's his moral responsibility to not only get them to stop, but also to do so in the least-damaging manner possible. And, because of his choice of employer, he also had a -legal- responsibility to do so. There's no need to throw the baby out with the bath water.

They may have been made legal by executive orders, that does not mean they weren't wholly undemocratic and massive violations of human rights.

Is the goal to get the NSA to stop collecting information on Americans?

I'd argue that it's to get the NSA (and the other five eyes partners) to stop spying on anyone, American or not, for whom they do not have probable cause to suspect that an offence has been committed. There's no justification for such surveillance of innocent people - none whatsoever.

Or is it to cause the most damage possible to the government's reputation?

Why not? They lied to the public and insisted that they respected civil rights. They deserve to be damaged for that.

Mother Brain

Manic Moran wrote: »

Not that they'd necessarily prosecute anyone, but to at least stop the NSA from its activities. And if the Intel Committee members responded back with PFOs, Snowden would still have the further option of doing what he did.

Here's the deal. If Snowden was of the opinion that these were illegal activities, it's his moral responsibility to not only get them to stop, but also to do so in the least-damaging manner possible. And, because of his choice of employer, he also had a -legal- responsibility to do so. There's no need to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I agree. But, seeing as I have a very cynical view of national-level politicians, I suspect that what would happen is that they would do the trumpeting themselves and seize the opportunity for self-promotion once the information crossed their desk. Especially if they had reason to suspect that the information could go public soon anyway.

Perhaps so, though I wouldn't rate the average american congressman's willingness to go against the prevailing political orthodoxy and speak out against national security policy off their own bat. Especially in a void of awareness amongst voters of what it was he was trying to expose.

You also, mention above that snowden had a duty of care to reveal the information in the least damaging way possible and of course, I totally agree, but I fail to see any material harm caused by the leaks.

There were no personnel lists or operational / military records leaked. It's mostly internal briefing documents and memo's and the like. I can't off the top of my head think of anyone who be said to have materially suffered as a result of this information going public than snowden himself really?

I agree that he could perhaps have gone the route you describe and still have had the option to go public if he failed to achieve results, however I'd probably provide the benefit of the doubt to snowden for being able to judge the likelihood of his actions ramifications had he tried to go through official or internal channels. And indeed, i don't feel it would outside the realms of possibility that revealing your misgivings about the program could have resulted in some potentially nasty retort from the security and intelligence services, though that's pure speculation of course.

hatrickpatrick

Mother Brain wrote: »

Perhaps so, though I wouldn't rate the average american congressman's willingness to go against the prevailing political orthodoxy and speak out against national security policy off their own bat. Especially in a void of awareness amongst voters of what it was he was trying to expose.

There were one or two. Ron Wyden directly asked Alexander (former NSA chief) if they collected any data on all Americans (he already knew the answer, having seen the classified files) and Alexander flatly denied it. The next step would have been to prosecute him for lying under oath, but Snowden pulled the trigger before that had a chance to happen.

To be fair, Wyden and a few others were trying for years to expose this stuff without breaking any laws - which in and of itself entirely justifies Snowden doing so illegally.

Mother Brain

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

There were one or two. Ron Wyden directly asked Alexander (former NSA chief) if they collected any data on all Americans (he already knew the answer, having seen the classified files) and Alexander flatly denied it. The next step would have been to prosecute him for lying under oath, but Snowden pulled the trigger before that had a chance to happen.

To be fair, Wyden and a few others were trying for years to expose this stuff without breaking any laws - which in and of itself entirely justifies Snowden doing so illegally.

I actually remember reading about that but I thought it was after the fact.

BMMachine

he did exactly the right thing.

maybe if America didnt invade countries and destabilise entire regions of the planet under false pretences -repeatedly- then that wouldnt happen. Oh and look who has to take care of the mess america made, Europe. Thanks for that guys (and Blair), great f**king job

hatrickpatrick

Mother Brain wrote: »

I actually remember reading about that but I thought it was after the fact.

No Wyden was hammering at this for years, and you can tell how frustrated he was at being constrained by the law. He repeatedly said things such as "If the American public had any idea how scarily the government was interpreting this law [about the Patriot Act and FAA 702], they would be utterly horrified".

The fact that a congressman was thus prevented from representing the public shows just how broken the system was. If everyone is being watched, at the very least they should know that it's going on.

Zebra3

Manic Moran wrote: »

Not that they'd necessarily prosecute anyone, but to at least stop the NSA from its activities. And if the Intel Committee members responded back with PFOs, Snowden would still have the further option of doing what he did.

Here's the deal. If Snowden was of the opinion that these were illegal activities, it's his moral responsibility to not only get them to stop, but also to do so in the least-damaging manner possible. And, because of his choice of employer, he also had a -legal- responsibility to do so. There's no need to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Is the goal to get the NSA to stop collecting information on Americans? Or is it to cause the most damage possible to the government's reputation? The one is far more laudable than the other. And much less likely to result in a prison sentence.

You make it sound like he was up against reasonable people, not bloodthirsty nutjobs.

He had no reason whatsoever to trust the US political and judicial system.

Massimo Cassagrande

robindch wrote: »

Snowden's actions are in many ways admirable.

However, in the absence of any similar releases from China, India, Brazil, the UK, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea, France etc, not to mention his current base, Russia - given everything that it's doing - much of the admiration for his actions, and particularly the scale of them, seems questionable at best.

Whatabout them Footpaths Joe?

I think the old "better to light a candle than whinge about the dark" theory applies in Snowdens case. No one cared anyway, which was odd.

2ndcoming

Mother Brain wrote: »

Perhaps so, though I wouldn't rate the average american congressman's willingness to go against the prevailing political orthodoxy and speak out against national security policy off their own bat. Especially in a void of awareness amongst voters of what it was he was trying to expose.

You also, mention above that snowden had a duty of care to reveal the information in the least damaging way possible and of course, I totally agree, but I fail to see any material harm caused by the leaks.

There were no personnel lists or operational / military records leaked. It's mostly internal briefing documents and memo's and the like. I can't off the top of my head think of anyone who be said to have materially suffered as a result of this information going public than snowden himself really?

I agree that he could perhaps have gone the route you describe and still have had the option to go public if he failed to achieve results, however I'd probably provide the benefit of the doubt to snowden for being able to judge the likelihood of his actions ramifications had he tried to go through official or internal channels. And indeed, i don't feel it would outside the realms of possibility that revealing your misgivings about the program could have resulted in some potentially nasty retort from the security and intelligence services, though that's pure speculation of course.

This sums up my thoughts exactly. The notion that the intelligence and security agencies who are knowingly doing wrong as a part of covert government policy are just going to allow this information to be escalated casually into the public domain through the proper channels displays an incredible level of naivety, especially given all we know about the track record of the agencies in question.

In short, that's how you end up dead.

hatrickpatrick

I know it didn't get a great reception because of the lack of Matt Damon, but the fourth Bourne film (The Bourne Legacy) is a good watch simply because there's an entire segment mid-way through it in which the intelligence agencies are trying to discredit a potential whistleblower before she can blow the whistle. The scene shows them trawling through files they have on this woman and leaking anything which could damage her credibility to the press (I remember one or two things about smoking pot in college, a conviction for having no insurance etc) and she watches all of these stories appearing in the media from the airport.

Why do I bring this up? Because literally immediately after Snowden's identity was made public by Glenn Greenwald, stuff about his past started appearing in the media. The US press made a massively big deal of the fact that he had applied to join the military and been a trainee, but ultimately hadn't been good enough at it and had been turned down. They also went to town trying to paint him as some kind of low-level technician who knew nothing about what he was doing, rather than the senior systems administrator he was with the level of respect and influence he had within the intelligence community.

I'm irresistibly reminded of how the Irish establishment and media handled the Garda whistleblowers, and subsequently GSOC, in 2014.

The Western World simply doesn't do political accountability on any level. Anyone who tries to force it will be targeted relentlessly by various prongs of the establishment until they shut up, disappear into the night, and stop being a nuisance. The only way to achieve any level of genuine transparency and rule by the public is for people to break the law. It's that simple. The methods of protest and whistleblowing which are "officially sanctioned" are very deliberately only those which can be easily deflected. If you want to actually make waves, you have to rock the boat.

K-9

MonkeyTennis wrote: »

The worst thing about Snowdons revelations is that no-one seemed to really care they were being spied upon.

This is a country where half the people claim to hate 'big government'

Good point.

Small Government until it comes to armies and stuff, then shock and awe and all that. Really is bizarre logic but armies have guns so therefore.........

K-9

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I know it didn't get a great reception because of the lack of Matt Damon, but the fourth Bourne film (The Bourne Legacy) is a good watch simply because there's an entire segment mid-way through it in which the intelligence agencies are trying to discredit a potential whistleblower before she can blow the whistle. The scene shows them trawling through files they have on this woman and leaking anything which could damage her credibility to the press (I remember one or two things about smoking pot in college, a conviction for having no insurance etc) and she watches all of these stories appearing in the media from the airport.

Why do I bring this up? Because literally immediately after Snowden's identity was made public by Glenn Greenwald, stuff about his past started appearing in the media. The US press made a massively big deal of the fact that he had applied to join the military and been a trainee, but ultimately hadn't been good enough at it and had been turned down. They also went to town trying to paint him as some kind of low-level technician who knew nothing about what he was doing, rather than the senior systems administrator he was with the level of respect and influence he had within the intelligence community.

I'm irresistibly reminded of how the Irish establishment and media handled the Garda whistleblowers, and subsequently GSOC, in 2014.

The Western World simply doesn't do political accountability on any level. Anyone who tries to force it will be targeted relentlessly by various prongs of the establishment until they shut up, disappear into the night, and stop being a nuisance. The only way to achieve any level of genuine transparency and rule by the public is for people to break the law. It's that simple. The methods of protest and whistleblowing which are "officially sanctioned" are very deliberately only those which can be easily deflected. If you want to actually make waves, you have to rock the boat.

I'd recommend Kill the Messenger, out last year about the Contras.

Once the story is out, the story then becomes you, the whistleblowers credibility and Government, just like big tobacco or oil or pharma will do whatever it takes to tarnish that good name.

RustyNut

Manic Moran wrote: »

Last I checked, it was the US politicians and courts which have had any influence on curtailing the NSA's activities, not outraged denizens of the Twitterverse no matter what country they were in.

LOL.
And who exactly was it that set up and approved all the illegal and highly immoral Stasi type spying in the first place if not the very same us politicians and secret courts?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Manic Moran wrote: »

Given that no nation usually acts out in the interests of any nation but itself, I can't say that it's surprising, even if it comes with political liabilities if discovered. I wouldn't be surprised if any nation which had the resources to spare would be doing so.

And, given that we know it's not for security reasons, you think this is acceptable?

Which other establishment has he been relying upon? Last I checked, it was the US politicians and courts which have had any influence on curtailing the NSA's activities, not outraged denizens of the Twitterverse no matter what country they were in.

True, but the problems start when these institutions go unchallenged and unexposed when they abuse their powers.

hatrickpatrick

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsmo0hUWJ08

Ron Wyden vs James Clapper.

For anyone who believes that following the establishment approved methods of whistleblowing or public accountability actually works.

When Clapper said "not wittingly", he was in full possession of the detailed inner workings of 215, PRISM, and UPSTREAM. This was not a case of an official being coy or obfuscating, it wasn't a case of words being open to many interpretations, and it wasn't a case of a vague question being misunderstood.

The man sat there and directly lied, under oath, to the faces of those tasked with representing the public and making the rules regarding these programs. He lied under oath, and has never been charged with a crime or even investigated over that crime.

Democracy as we practise it in the West is a joke. The only way to force the establishment to serve the people instead of itself is to break the rules.

Overheal

To wit, Snowden sat on the information for years, and it according to his interviews it was not until he saw rampant crap like that above that he took the avenue he did. Even under congressional scrutiny, the intelligence community has no regard for perjury. Not only were they lying to the common citizens, but to elected officials, and blatantly at that.

hatrickpatrick

Overheal wrote: »

To wit, Snowden sat on the information for years, and it according to his interviews it was not until he saw rampant crap like that above that he took the avenue he did. Even under congressional scrutiny, the intelligence community has no regard for perjury. Not only were they lying to the common citizens, but to elected officials, and blatantly at that.

I think it says a lot that Snowden by all accounts took the "leakers are traitorous scum" view earlier in his life before he became aware of what was going on within the NSA.

One interesting aspect is that when he asked his colleagues if they had seen any of this stiff and how they felt about it, most were horrified and apparently only knew about a tiny bit of it themselves. So for instance, the guy at the NSA in charge of collecting July's Verizon phone records might only know about those records and assume that was part of a specific, time-sensitive investigation. Someone else would be responsible for AT&T, another for Sprint, and they'd be rotated around again the following month. Someone tasked with recording Skype metadata might not know that GCHQ in the UK were recording all the content. Someone tasked with tapping one fibre optic cable might not know that the others were being tapped by other staff members, and would assume that there was a specific, individual reason for their own assignment.

The difference with Snowden was that at his level of seniority he had access to all but a tiny handful of protected information (names and company identifies, the real people behind the codename essentially, were the only things he didn't have clearance for) and it was having this view of pretty much every major program going on that he was able to sit back and say "holy f*ck, the NSA is literally wiretapping every form of electronic communication for everyone in the world". Other staff couldn't see that and when Snowden confided in some of them, they were astonished - they thought that their own assignments were exceptional and therefore that there was probably a very specific justification for them.

ClovenHoof

Just one question? Show me one thing he has leaked that we didn't already know?


Actually 2 questions.

What if he was created by DARPA as a kind of Emmanuel Goldstein to make people think that there is a resistance to the USA's Patriot Act and all the other totalitarian measures implemented by Neo Cons AND Mr Hope and Change?

Public_Enema

Cienciano wrote: »

TIL that I'm the only person that thinks Neil DeGrasse Tyson comes across as a bit of a wánker

Ya, thankfully I think you are the only one.

hatrickpatrick

ClovenHoof wrote: »

Just one question? Show me one thing he has leaked that we didn't already know?

We didn't know that every byte of data we transmit was being warehoused by GCHQ for long term perusal. We suspected it, but we didn't have proof. We also didn't know, crucially, that the NSA had deliberately weakened several mainstream encryption standards and that the RSA was probably in bed with them thus rendering all RSA encryption products suspect. Finally, we didn't know for sure that Tor was (at least at the time) safe from snooping provided you configured ti correctly and used your common sense.

KingBrian2

The American public and their international allies are very unhappy with how intelligence is gathered, be it through subterfuge or surveillance. Their activities creates more turmoil than it does keep America safe.